A book was featured in last week's edition of the New Idea, about Prince Philip and his wit. There were extracts of the book, which I have taken photos of for the forum
Information on the book:Title: The Duke of Hazard: The Wit & Wisdom of Prince PhilipAuthor: Phil Darniper & Ashley Walton (New Idea writers, according to the magazine)Publisher: Guild Publishing

*Some of the extracts you can't read, because of the flash from my camera.
#3 - a close up of the one in the top-righthand corner of #1Source: Photos of my own copy

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"The Women of Windsor" by Catherine Whitney

I just got back from my local Barnes & Noble & I found a new book. Its called The Women of Windsor by Catherine Whitney. According the the B&N website it came out in April of '06. The book is about The Queen Mum, The Queen, Princess Margaret & Princess Anne. Has anyone read it or heard about this book? If you have read it, what are your thoughts about it.

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It sounded a bit interesting, at first. Mostly because of Princess Margaret and Princess Anne, about whom I haven't read all that many biographies...

but then I found this quote on the Barnes and Noble page about the book:

Quote:

Whitney's treatment of "the women of Windsor" (the queen mother, the queen, Princess Margaret, and Princess Anne) opens, oddly enough, with a prolog not about any of them but instead criticizing the late Princess of Wales ("Drama Queen") and Prince Charles ("the queen's biggest headache"). Whitney (The Calling: A Year in the Life of an Order of Nuns) then goes over familiar ground in this superficial work-the abdication of Edward VIII, the marriage of Elizabeth and Philip, Princess Margaret's affair with Peter Townsend, the attempted kidnapping of Princess Anne, etc., unable to go into any depth owing to the amount of ground she must cover in well under 300 pages.

- from Library Journal, Liz Mellett, P.L. of Brookline, MA

I'll probably see about getting it, but the review didn't make it sound overly tempting.

I read this book and I was not impressed. Unfortunately, she gets some of her dates wrong. I think Harry's birthday is one of them and there were a couple of others.

I did not like the style that it was written in. Almost like an Ingrid Seward with bated breath and all that. For example, supposedly when the Queen Mother died, Princess Anne came to be with the Queen and then later the Queen was happy she was there. And the Queen is thinking about how proud she is of her, blah, blah. It was like she was putting thoughts in her head and I thought it was ridiculous.

I think the idea of the book is good and I was looking forward to it. However, if you know much about the family, there is nothing really new. Basically, its a new opportunity to slam Diana!!!

What really goes on behind the royals' gilded doors? And how would an arch-republican feel about staying overnight in a palace? Jeremy Paxman, in the first of two extracts from his new book, recalls the shock of finding himself in a world of equerries, valets and hand-pressed underwear.

It is a bit embarassing that such an renowned journalist as mr Paxman can loose himself in futilities which trap himself.

He wrote about Prince Charles' demand that for breakfast there must always be seven eggs, boiled from extremely soft (number one) to rock hard (number 7) and all gradations in between. The Prince then makes a choice between the seven eggs, depending on his taste.

Asked about the source for this information mr Paxman: he heard it 'from friends'. But apparently he had not checked this information at all.

Chris Barber, who for 11 years was Chef of the princely kitchens: 'Prince Charles never ever throws food away. And he also never eats an egg at all for breakfast'.

How has a supposedly powerless institution like the British monarchy survived all calls for its abolition? In the second excerpt from his book on the royals, Jeremy Paxman examines the relationship between princes, prime ministers and the people.

What really goes on behind the royals' gilded doors? And how would an arch-republican feel about staying overnight in a palace? Jeremy Paxman, in the first of two extracts from his new book, recalls the shock of finding himself in a world of equerries, valets and hand-pressed underwear.

I started reading the article but stopped rather early on when I read that" A few years ago, Buckingham Palace advisers decided that the Queen really ought to see a little of the working lives of her subjects." - sorry, but I decided that this reader ought not to read the rest of either articles or the book.

Because I don't buy into a view of the Royal household where "advisors" decide what the queen has to do. It's such a direct - well, not longer just a hint, but a broad one or - clue that the author has no idea of Her Majesty's personality at all. Mind, I don't know Her Majesty apart from reading about her, but the overall picture that is painted of the queen is that she knows exactly what she wants and while she listens to advisors and treasures their efforts, she is the one who is in charge. Full stop.

So, this Paxton guy really seems to be at a complete loss when it comes to royality. But who might be interested in "The world of royality according to Paxton"? - to paraphrase Irving's Garp a bit.

BTW - why doesn't the Prince of Wales use egg coddlers? AFAIK they were invented to prevent exactly the problem as mentioned by Paxton: they are filled according to the master's wishes and cooked à la minute right in the butler's pantry.... I've quite a couple of those by Royal Worcester and my family loves to fill them on a sunday brunch or a High Tea. And I don't think Clarence House knows less than me about British tradtions when it comes to breakfast or High Tea.

__________________'To dare is to lose one step for but a moment, not to dare is to lose oneself forever' - Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark in a letter to Miss Mary Donaldson as stated by them on their official engagement interview.

I´m looking pretty "desperately" for the 1977-biography about the late eldest son of Prince Henry and Princess Alice, former Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, "William of Gloucester: Pioneer Prince"
Can someone help?!

Thanks a lot - I was unlucky enough to have lost it at an ebay auction recently...
Can somebody give som pre-informations about it (about photos and the quality of informations about Prince William in it, etc.)?

Synopsis from Amazon
The almost universal conception is that the life of Princess Margaret (1930-2002) was a tragic failure, a history of unfulfilment. Tim Heald's vivid and elegant biography portrays a woman who was beautiful and sexually alluring - even more so than Princess Diana years later - and whose reputation for naughtiness co-existed with the glamour. The mythology is that Margaret's life was 'ruined' by her not being allowed to marry the one true love of her life - Group Captain Peter Townsend. Therefore her marriage to Lord Snowdon and her well-attested relationships with Roddy Llewellyn and others were mere consolation prizes. Margaret's often exotic personal life in places like Mustique is a key part of her story. The author has had extraordinary help from those closest to Princess Margaret, including her family (Lord Snowdon and her son, Lord Linley), as well as three of her private secretaries and many of her ladies in waiting. These individuals have not talked to any previous biographer. He has also had the Queen's permission to use the royal archives. Heald asks why one of the most famous and loved little girls in the world, who became a juvenile wartime sweetheart, ended her life a sad wheelchairbound figure, publicly reviled and ignored. This is a story of a life in which the private and the public seemed permanently in conflict. The biography is packed with good stories. Princess Margaret was never ignored; what she said and did has been remembered and recounted to Tim Heald.

The Daily Mail is running excerpts of the novel and the two I read so far are fascinating reads.

From what I've read, this author Tim Heald has a very detached style. He doesn't approve of Margaret's first love Group Captain Peter Townsend but he hems and haws over whether Townsend was the great love of Margaret's life.

He compares Margaret to Diana and emphasizes how polarizing she was. Apparently if you knew her, you either loved or hated her. But he saw a pervasive sadness throughout her life and which seems quite typical, he's unwilling to commit to saying why the sadness was there. Was it her thwarted love affair with the divorced equerry Group Captain Townsend? Was it always playing second fiddle to her older sister? Was it being brought up to matter and growing up in a world where the younger sisters of monarchs no longer mattered? Heald never actually commits.

It looks like an interesting book but there is something about the tone that is a little offputting and I can't put my finger on it. I'll look forward to more installments though.

__________________"One thing we can do is make the choice to view the world in a healthy way. We can choose to see the world as safe with only moments of danger rather than seeing the world as dangerous with only moments of safety."

An interview with Lord Snowdon, the diary from the Queen's personal secretary during the Townsend affair, conversations with Cecil Beaton, Lady Violet Bonham Carter (daughter of Prime Minister Lord Asquith), Prue Penn, another old friend of Margaret, her cousin, Margaret Rhodes. He previously wrote an authorized biography of Prince Phlip.

His rather Puritan disapproval of the 'ungentlemanly conduct of Peter Townsend during his affair with Margaret seemed quite quaint.

I think I was most surprised at Cecil Beaton's venom against a Princess he had photographed so beautifully in her youth, calling her a little pocket monster after meeting her again in the 70s after her marriage was over. Something must have gone wrong in that relationship somewhere.

Overall a fascinating read. I'm looking forward to more installments.

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__________________"One thing we can do is make the choice to view the world in a healthy way. We can choose to see the world as safe with only moments of danger rather than seeing the world as dangerous with only moments of safety."